Analysis finds proportion of female authors and characters fell after 19th century, with male authors remaining ‘remarkably resistant’ to writing women Women in novels have tended to “feel”, while men “get”; women smile or laugh, while men grin or chuckle. An analysis of more than 100,000 novels spanning more than 200 years shows how gendered even seemingly innocuous words can be – as well as revealing an unexpected decline in the proportion of female novelists from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century.Academics from the universities of Illinois and California at Berkeley used an algorithm to examine 104,000 works of fiction dating from 1780 to 2007, drawn mostly from HathiTrust Digital Library. The algorithm identified both author and character genders. The academics expected to see an increase in the prominence of female characters in literature across the two centuries. Instead, “from the 19th century through the early 1960s we see a story of steady decline,” write Ted Underwood, David Bamman and Sabrina Lee in their paper The Transformation of Gender in English-Language Fiction, which has just been published in the Journal of Cultural Analytics.No one has been willing to advance the dismal suggestion that the whole story from 1800 to 1960 was a story of declineOn average, men remain remarkably resistant to giving women more than a third of the character-space in their stories Related: Pushing back: why it's time for women to rewrite the story Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2018-02-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Analysis finds proportion of female authors and characters fell after 19th century, with male authors remaining ‘remarkably resistant’ to writing women Women in novels have tended to “feel”, while men “get”; women smile or laugh, while men grin or chuckle. An analysis of more than 100,000 novels... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2018-02-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The “Aya” series explores the pains and pleasures of everyday life in a working-class neighborhood in West Africa. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-02-10 10:02:39 UTC ]
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Analysis of more than 2m titles shows that on average, male authors’ work is strikingly better valuedA study of more than 2m books has revealed that titles by female authors are on average sold at just over half the price of those written by men. The research, by sociologist Dana Beth Weinberg... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2018-05-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Study of six major awards in the last 15 years shows male subjects the predominant focus of winning novels• How well do you know fiction’s female protagonists - quizAnalysis of the last 15 years of winners of six major literary awards by the critically acclaimed author Nicola Griffith has found... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-06-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Reading a novel stimulates the brain for days, US researchers have found. The study,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-12-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Fifty-one percent of women over 40 feel older women in fiction books tend to fall into clichéd roles, according to a new survey. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-06-27 07:03:41 UTC ]
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Report finds that books with main characters from minority ethnicities or who are disabled or neurodivergent are written by those who do not share the protagonist’s identityMore than half of children’s books with marginalised main characters are by writers and illustrators who do not share their... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-10-03 17:10:48 UTC ]
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This diverse slate of standout debut novels by women spans genre, from historical saga to contemporary comic novel to postapocalyptic fantasy, as well as the globe, from California to a far-flung Nordic isle. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-05-10 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Three Black women novelists make their debut with tales of inheritance, friendship, and alternate futures. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-02-08 05:00:00 UTC ]
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The Modern Library Torchbearers series, which spotlights women writers throughout history, will reissue four novels by Elaine Kraf, which were originally published between 1969 and 1979. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-01-17 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Science fiction made me want to be a writer. As a child in the ‘90s I read Interstellar Pig because my older sister loved it, and that’s when it started—a lifelong obsession with alternate universes, aliens, time travel, dystopia; a compulsion to read and eventually tell stories to make sense of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-12-12 09:52:39 UTC ]
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These campus novels for adults raise questions around race, class, or gender or are simply set in or around campuses, including Real Life by Brandon Taylor. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-08-21 10:33:00 UTC ]
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In an analysis of 300,000 English Literature syllabi, these are the novels by women authors that were the most commonly assigned. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-07-25 13:22:28 UTC ]
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Oh dear. Earlier this month, Publishers Weekly reported on romance readers’ increased appetite for books with “cinnamon rolls” and “golden retrievers” as their leading men—categories that are exactly what they sound like: “sweet, supportive, and kind” (CR) and possessed of “a warm, floppy energy... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-06-22 14:24:03 UTC ]
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A new report from Group Black and Nielsen reveals Black creators have larger and more engaged followings than their non-Black peers. Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2023-06-13 14:00:00 UTC ]
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First-time novelists are joined by two former winners on the diverse list, as the six ‘ambitious and hard-hitting’ contenders are revealed• ‘We were blown away’: how we chose the Women’s prize shortlistThree debut novels will compete against books by two former winners for this year’s Women’s... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-04-26 06:30:01 UTC ]
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The Heterodoxy club of the early 1900s was made up of mostly college-educated women who debated radical ideas and lived radical lives. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-07-08 12:00:27 UTC ]
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A Nobel laureate and a future publisher play major roles in Margarita Engle’s “Singing With Elephants” and Michael Morpurgo’s “The Puffin Keeper.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-06-03 04:06:53 UTC ]
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The theatre is a perennially popular setting for novelists and no wonder. The tawdry glamour and sense of spectacle make it a rich gift for any author, but it’s what happens behind the scenes that I find the most interesting. This is particularly true for those novels set on the 19th-century... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-04-14 11:00:00 UTC ]
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For more than a century, popular science fiction has promised us a future filled with robotics and AI technologies. In 2022, many of those dreams are being realized — computers recognize us on sight and cars can drive themselves, we’re building intelligent exoskeletons that multiply our strength... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-03-31 17:00:38 UTC ]
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